Wild Town

Far from his best work but it's still readable and those moments of dark emotional truth still pop up once in a while, even if they don't hit quite as hard as they do elsewhere.......more

Although not the main protagonist, Lou Ford, a character from two other classic Thompson novels - The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280 is nonetheless the prime mover as he sets things in motion by releasing Bugs McKenna from jail and arranging his hire as a hotel detective. Plenty of noir dealings and......more

Not the best Thompson (see The Criminal for a perfectly formed noir), but still a sizzling, hot little thriller. Hard to engage with the characters here, and they are almost caricatures, drawn without the usual Thompson eye for subtle shades of colour. The plot is rather thin, but plot was never rea......more

I’ve never read a bad Jim Thompson. The world he creates is so real and yet so his, you can almost smell the cheap whisky and desperation. This is another great tale of suckers, hard dames and homicide, with an ending that defies expectations to such an extent it is brilliant.......more

This is the eleventh Jim Thompson I've read so far, and the most exciting. Certainly the most eventful. It just might be my favorite.......more